Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukherjee

Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukherjee

Genre: Historical crime

Summary

December 1921, Calcutta. Captain Sam Wyndham keeps his opium addiction a secret from his superiors. One night, his colleagues raid an opium den and he narrowly escapes detection. As he runs, he stumbles over a mutilated body. Eyeless. Two stab wounds in the chest. Opium-dazed, Sam’s unsure whether this is a hallucination or reality. No one reports a murder.

Meanwhile, their boss tells Sam and his sergeant, “Surrender-Not” Banerjee, to persuade Das, Gandhi’s chief lieutenant in Bengal, not to organize a protest during Prince Edward’s visit.

Then there’s another murder. The corpse bears the same wounds as the victim in the opium den. It can’t be a coincidence. But how can Sam investigate the link between the two victims when he’s got to keep his addiction a secret?

What works for me:

Everything.

That’s not an exaggeration. I took four pages of notes and could’ve written more. (Okay, it was in a 5×7 notebook, but for most novels, I take 2 or 2 1/2 pages of notes.) Here’s a few of the major ones.

The opening.

Mukherjee has mastered the art of the opening lines.

It’s not unusual to find a corpse in a funeral parlour. It’s just rare for them to walk in the door under their own steam. (Smoke and Ashes, page 1)

Bam! and we’re right there in Sam’s mind as he flees an opium den during a police raid, stumbling through dark hallways and over almost-dead bodies, trying not to get caught by his colleagues.

The portrayal of the upheaval in India

Prince Edward (later Edward VII) is coming to India. Gandhi has called for Indian independence, sparking a non-violent non-cooperation movement that unites both the Bengali and Muslim factions (amazing!) to protest continued British ruling. United, they can shut down major roads simply by smiling while they sit in the road and pray. Current tensions run high. Indian British policemen are quitting by the dozens, so the British don’t have enough police presence to keep the peace.

Mukherjee excels at showing the tensions, the differing opinions, and the complicated political moves of both British and Indian leaders. For example, they can’t arrest Gandhi or his right hand man Das because doing that would make martyrs of them. (There’s nothing like a martyr to refuel  enthusiasm for a protest.) But Sam knows that trying to “persuade” Gandhi and the other leaders not to protest during the Prince’s visit is futile.

Sam’s character growth

We’re in Sam’s head. Sometimes that’s not a pleasant place to be. He’s sarcastic, often acid-tongued, and paranoid. (It’s kept him alive, he believes. He may be right.)

His opinions color everything he sees. Background details and cultural explanations that might be dull are brought to life with his sharp and sardonic observations. They aren’t always politically correct. He’s a walking paradox, simultaneously racist and progressive.

On the one hand, he still thinks of the British police as being the best people to maintain law and order in India. He doesn’t care for the “new breed” of Indian revolutionaries (Gandhi’s non-violent protesters). He’s definitely not in favor of Indian independence.

But on the other hand, he shares his living quarters with his Bengali sergeant, Surrender-Not, and considers him to be a friend and confidant. He also investigates the murder of a native woman as thoroughly as he would a white person’s death. Both of these are unusual for a British officer at that time. As he and another officer examine the native woman’s mutilated body, the other man comments that Sam must be used to seeing murdered bodies, he responds, “I pray I never get used to seeing it” (page 87).

He’s about as cuddly as a Brillo pad, but he’s not beyond redemption. I appreciate how in both Smoke and Ashes and A Necessary Evil, Sam comes to new realizations about himself and others. He’s growing as a person. It will be interesting to see how he changes throughout this series.

Surrender-Not

Speaking of character growth, Sam’s sergeant is changing, too. He’s been estranged from his family since he joined the British police force. It’s been a source of pain, but in this novel it comes to the forefront. With so many other Indian policemen quitting the force, his continued presence seems a betrayal of his country and siding with the resented British. He loves his job. Yet he loves his family, too.

His relationship with Sam is changing as well. They seem more like equals (or moving toward equality) in this book than the last.

Like Sam, he’s a bit of a walking contradiction. He’s too shy to talk to beautiful young women, but he’s fabulous at interviewing older women. He shows a disdain for the English language (he finds it deficient–especially its speakers’ inability to pronounce his first name) but is fluent and is often relied on to translate for the British police. He was raised to be a priest but ended up as a policeman. In some regards, he’s innocent but he’s a source of reliable information about Indian cultures for Sam.

The mystery

This particular mystery is deeply rooted in the British/Indian relationship. It’s believable and heart-breaking.

This is a terrific historical crime novel. I highly recommend it!

Bonus tip for writers:

Give secondary characters a chance to grow.

All too often, the protagonist does all the growing. Sometimes the antagonist gets her/his own character arc. But others are static. It’s as if they only exist in relation to the protagonist or antagonist.

That’s too bad, because secondary characters need their own character arc, too. (By “secondary”, I mean major characters who aren’t the focus of the story.) It’s a chance to add layers of conflict and depth to the story.

Mukherjee does this with Surrender-Not. He’s a fully developed character with his own story arc. He’s coming to a point where he’ll have to choose between his family (and by extension, his country) and his job (which involves serving the country). He’s no longer an idealist who believes his country needs detectives. It’s great to see him growing into his abilities.

Note: This review also appears on Goodreads and Bookbub. Smoke and Ashes is part of the Year of the Asian reading challenge, which you can read about here. See my review for the previous book in the Sam Wyndham/Surrender-Not Banerjee series, A Necessary Evil.